matplotlib colorbar for scatter

Solution 1:

From the matplotlib docs on scatter 1:

cmap is only used if c is an array of floats

So colorlist needs to be a list of floats rather than a list of tuples as you have it now. plt.colorbar() wants a mappable object, like the CircleCollection that plt.scatter() returns. vmin and vmax can then control the limits of your colorbar. Things outside vmin/vmax get the colors of the endpoints.

How does this work for you?

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
cm = plt.cm.get_cmap('RdYlBu')
xy = range(20)
z = xy
sc = plt.scatter(xy, xy, c=z, vmin=0, vmax=20, s=35, cmap=cm)
plt.colorbar(sc)
plt.show()

Solution 2:

Here is the OOP way of adding a colorbar:

fig, ax = plt.subplots()
im = ax.scatter(x, y, c=c)
fig.colorbar(im, ax=ax)